Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series)

by Algernon Charles Swinburne

  Sweet vantage as no strength resists?

  Our strength is all a broken crutch,

  Our eyes are dim with mists,

  Our hearts are prisoners as we touch

  Two flower-soft fists.

  PROLOGUE TO DOCTOR FAUSTUS

  Light, as when dawn takes wing and smites the sea,

  Smote England when his day bade Marlowe be.

  No fire so keen had thrilled the clouds of time

  Since Dante’s breath made Italy sublime.

  Earth, bright with flowers whose dew shone soft as tears,

  Through Chaucer cast her charm on eyes and ears:

  The lustrous laughter of the love-lit earth

  Rang, leapt, and lightened in his might of mirth.

  Deep moonlight, hallowing all the breathless air,

  Made earth and heaven for Spenser faint and fair.

  But song might bid not heaven and earth be one

  Till Marlowe’s voice gave warning of the sun.

  Thought quailed and fluttered as a wounded bird

  Till passion fledged the wing of Marlowe’s word.

  Faith born of fear bade hope and doubt be dumb

  Till Marlowe’s pride bade light or darkness come.

  Then first our speech was thunder: then our song

  Shot lightning through the clouds that wrought us wrong.

  Blind fear, whose faith feeds hell with fire, became

  A moth self-shrivelled in its own blind flame.

  We heard, in tune with even our seas that roll,

  The speech of storm, the thunders of the soul.

  Men’s passions, clothed with all the woes they wrought,

  Shone through the fire of man’s transfiguring thought.

  The thirst of knowledge, quenchless at her springs,

  Ambition, fire that clasps the thrones of kings,

  Love, light that makes of life one lustrous hour,

  And song, the soul’s chief crown and throne of power,

  The hungering heart of greed and ravenous hate,

  Made music high as heaven and deep as fate.

  Strange pity, scarce half scornful of her tear,

  In Berkeley’s vaults bowed down on Edward’s bier.

  But higher in forceful flight of song than all

  The soul of man, its own imperious thrall,

  Rose, when his royal spirit of fierce desire

  Made life and death for man one flame of fire.

  Incarnate man, fast bound as earth and sea,

  Spake, when his pride would fain set Faustus free.

  Eternal beauty, strong as day and night,

  Shone, when his word bade Helen back to sight.

  Fear, when he bowed the soul before her spell,

  Thundered and lightened through the vaults of hell.

  The music known of all men’s tongues that sing,

  When Marlowe sang, bade love make heaven of spring;

  The music none but English tongues may make,

  Our own sole song, spake first when Marlowe spake;

  And on his grave, though there no stone may stand,

  The flower it shows was laid by Shakespeare’s hand.

  PROLOGUE TO ARDEN OF FEVERSHAM

  Love dark as death and fierce as fire on wing

  Sustains in sin the soul that feels it cling

  Like flame whose tongues are serpents: hope and fear

  Die when a love more dire than hate draws near,

  And stings to death the heart it cleaves in twain,

  And leaves in ashes all but fear and pain.

  Our lustrous England rose to life and light

  From Rome’s and hell’s immitigable night,

  And music laughed and quickened from her breath,

  When first her sons acclaimed Elizabeth.

  Her soul became a lyre that all men heard

  Who felt their souls give back her lyric word.

  Yet now not all at once her perfect power

  Spake: man’s deep heart abode awhile its hour,

  Abode its hour of utterance; not to wake

  Till Marlowe’s thought in thunderous music spake.

  But yet not yet was passion’s tragic breath

  Thrilled through with sense of instant life and death,

  Life actual even as theirs who watched the strife,

  Death dark and keen and terrible as life.

  Here first was truth in song made perfect: here

  Woke first the war of love and hate and fear.

  A man too vile for thought’s or shame’s control

  Holds empire on a woman’s loftier soul,

  And withers it to wickedness: in vain

  Shame quickens thought with penitential pain:

  In vain dark chance’s fitful providence

  Withholds the crime, and chills the spirit of sense:

  It wakes again in fire that burns away

  Repentance, weak as night devoured of day.

  Remorse, and ravenous thirst of sin and crime,

  Rend and consume the soul in strife sublime,

  And passion cries on pity till it hear

  And tremble as with love that casts out fear.

  Dark as the deed and doom he gave to fame

  For ever lies the sovereign singer’s name.

  Sovereign and regent on the soul he lives

  While thought gives thanks for aught remembrance gives,

  And mystery sees the imperial shadow stand

  By Marlowe’s side alone at Shakespeare’s hand.

  PROLOGUE TO OLD FORTUNATUS

  The golden bells of fairyland, that ring

  Perpetual chime for childhood’s flower-sweet spring,

  Sang soft memorial music in his ear

  Whose answering music shines about us here.

  Soft laughter as of light that stirs the sea

  With darkling sense of dawn ere dawn may be,

  Kind sorrow, pity touched with gentler scorn,

  Keen wit whose shafts were sunshafts of the morn,

  Love winged with fancy, fancy thrilled with love,

  An eagle’s aim and ardour in a dove,

  A man’s delight and passion in a child,

  Inform it as when first they wept and smiled.

  Life, soiled and rent and ringed about with pain

  Whose touch lent action less of spur than chain,

  Left half the happiness his birth designed,

  And half the power, unquenched in heart and mind.

  Comrade and comforter, sublime in shame,

  A poor man bound in prison whence he came

  Poor, and took up the burden of his life

  Smiling, and strong to strive with sorrow and strife,

  He spake in England’s ear the poor man’s word,

  Manful and mournful, deathless and unheard.

  His kind great heart was fire, and love’s own fire,

  Compassion, strong as flesh may feel desire,

  To enkindle pity and mercy toward a soul

  Sunk down in shame too deep for shame’s control.

  His kind keen eye was light to lighten hope

  Where no man else might see life’s darkness ope

  And pity’s touch bring forth from evil good,

  Sweet as forgiveness, strong as fatherhood.

  Names higher than his outshine it and outsoar,

  But none save one should memory cherish more:

  Praise and thanksgiving crown the names above,

  But him we give the gift he gave us, love.

  PROLOGUE TO THE DUCHESS OF MALFY

  When Shakespeare soared from life to death, above

  All praise, all adoration, save of love,

  As here on earth above all men he stood

  That were or are or shall be — great, and good,

  Past thank or thought of England or of man —

  Light from the sunset quickened as it ran.

  His word, who sang as never man may sing

 
And spake as never voice of man may ring,

  Not fruitless fell, as seed on sterile ways,

  But brought forth increase even to Shakespeare’s praise.

  Our skies were thrilled and filled, from sea to sea,

  With stars outshining all their suns to be.

  No later light of tragic song they knew

  Like his whose lightning clove the sunset through.

  Half Shakespeare’s glory, when his hand sublime

  Bade all the change of tragic life and time

  Live, and outlive all date of quick and dead,

  Fell, rested, and shall rest on Webster’s head.

  Round him the shadows cast on earth by light

  Rose, changed, and shone, transfiguring death and night.

  Where evil only crawled and hissed and slew

  On ways where nought save shame and bloodshed grew,

  He bade the loyal light of honour live,

  And love, when stricken through the heart, forgive.

  Deep down the midnight of the soul of sin

  He lit the star of mercy throned therein.

  High up the darkness of sublime despair

  He set the sun of love to triumph there.

  Things foul or frail his touch made strong and pure,

  And bade things transient like to stars endure.

  Terror, on wings whose flight made night in heaven,

  Pity, with hands whence life took love for leaven,

  Breathed round him music whence his mortal breath

  Drew life that bade forgetfulness and death

  Die: life that bids his light of fiery fame

  Endure with England’s, yea, with Shakespeare’s name.

  PROLOGUE TO THE REVENGER’S TRAGEDY

  Fire, and behind the breathless flight of fire

  Thunder that quickens fear and quells desire,

  Make bright and loud the terror of the night

  Wherein the soul sees only wrath for light.

  Wrath winged by love and sheathed by grief in steel

  Sets on the front of crime death’s withering seal.

  The heaving horror of the storms of sin

  Brings forth in fear the lightning hid therein,

  And flashes back to darkness: truth, found pure

  And perfect, asks not heaven if shame endure.

  What life and death were his whose raging song

  Bore heaven such witness of the wild world’s wrong,

  What hand was this that grasped such thunder, none

  Knows: night and storm seclude him from the sun.

  By daytime none discerns the fire of Mars:

  Deep darkness bares to sight the sterner stars,

  The lights whose dawn seems doomsday. None may tell

  Whence rose a world so lit from heaven and hell.

  Life-wasting love, hate born of raging lust,

  Fierce retribution, fed with death’s own dust

  And sorrow’s pampering poison, cross and meet,

  And wind the world in passion’s winding-sheet.

  So, when dark faith in faith’s dark ages heard

  Falsehood, and drank the poison of the Word,

  Two shades misshapen came to monstrous birth,

  A father fiend in heaven, a thrall on earth:

  Man, meanest born of beasts that press the sod,

  And die: the vilest of his creatures, God.

  A judge unjust, a slave that praised his name,

  Made life and death one fire of sin and shame.

  And thence reverberate even on Shakespeare’s age

  A light like darkness crossed his sunbright stage.

  Music, sublime as storm or sorrow, sang

  Before it: tempest like a harpstring rang.

  The fiery shadow of a name unknown

  Rose, and in song’s high heaven abides alone.

  PROLOGUE TO THE BROKEN HEART

  The mightiest choir of song that memory hears

  Gave England voice for fifty lustrous years.

  Sunrise and thunder fired and shook the skies

  That saw the sun-god Marlowe’s opening eyes.

  The morn’s own music, answered of the sea,

  Spake, when his living lips bade Shakespeare be,

  And England, made by Shakespeare’s quickening breath

  Divine and deathless even till life be death,

  Brought forth to time such godlike sons of men

  That shamefaced love grows pride, and now seems then.

  Shame that their day so shone, so sang, so died,

  Remembering, finds remembrance one with pride.

  That day was clouding toward a stormlit close

  When Ford’s red sphere upon the twilight rose.

  Sublime with stars and sunset fire, the sky

  Glowed as though day, nigh dead, should never die.

  Sorrow supreme and strange as chance or doom

  Shone, spake, and shuddered through the lustrous gloom.

  Tears lit with love made all the darkening air

  Bright as though death’s dim sunrise thrilled it there

  And life re-risen took comfort. Stern and still

  As hours and years that change and anguish fill,

  The strong secluded spirit, ere it woke,

  Dwelt dumb till power possessed it, and it spoke.

  Strange, calm, and sure as sense of beast or bird,

  Came forth from night the thought that breathed the word;

  That chilled and thrilled with passion-stricken breath

  Halls where Calantha trod the dance of death.

  A strength of soul too passionately pure

  To change for aught that horror bids endure,

  To quail and wail and weep faint life away

  Ere sovereign sorrow smite, relent, and slay,

  Sustained her silent, till her bridal bloom

  Changed, smiled, and waned in rapture toward the tomb.

  Terror twin-born with pity kissed and thrilled

  The lips that Shakespeare’s word or Webster’s filled:

  Here both, cast out, fell silent: pity shrank,

  Rebuked, and terror, spirit-stricken, sank:

  The soul assailed arose afar above

  All reach of all but only death and love.

  PROLOGUE TO A VERY WOMAN

  Swift music made of passion’s changeful power,

  Sweet as the change that leaves the world in flower

  When spring laughs winter down to deathward, rang

  From grave and gracious lips that smiled and sang

  When Massinger, too wise for kings to hear

  And learn of him truth, wisdom, faith, or fear,

  Gave all his gentler heart to love’s light lore,

  That grief might brood and scorn breed wrath no more.

  Soft, bright, fierce, tender, fitful, truthful, sweet,

  A shrine where faith and change might smile and meet,

  A soul whose music could but shift its tune

  As when the lustrous year turns May to June

  And spring subsides in summer, so makes good

  Its perfect claim to very womanhood.

  The heart that hate of wrong made fire, the hand

  Whose touch was fire as keen as shame’s own brand

  When fraud and treason, swift to smile and sting,

  Crowned and discrowned a tyrant, knave or king,

  False each and ravenous as the fitful sea,

  Grew gently glad as love that fear sets free.

  Like eddying ripples that the wind restrains,

  The bright words whisper music ere it wanes.

  Ere fades the sovereign sound of song that rang

  As though the sun to match the sea’s tune sang,

  When noon from dawn took life and light, and time

  Shone, seeing how Shakespeare made the world sublime,

  Ere sinks the wind whose breath was heaven’s and day’s,

  The sunset’s witness gives the sundawn
praise.

  PROLOGUE TO THE SPANISH GIPSY

  The wind that brings us from the springtide south

  Strange music as from love’s or life’s own mouth

  Blew hither, when the blast of battle ceased

  That swept back southward Spanish prince and priest,

  A sound more sweet than April’s flower-sweet rain,

  And bade bright England smile on pardoned Spain.

  The land that cast out Philip and his God

  Grew gladly subject where Cervantes trod.

  Even he whose name above all names on earth

  Crowns England queen by grace of Shakespeare’s birth

  Might scarce have scorned to smile in God’s wise down

  And gild with praise from heaven an earthlier crown.

  And he whose hand bade live down lengthening years

  Quixote, a name lit up with smiles and tears,

  Gave the glad watchword of the gipsies’ life,

  Where fear took hope and grief took joy to wife.

  Times change, and fame is fitful as the sea:

  But sunset bids not darkness always be,

  And still some light from Shakespeare and the sun

  Burns back the cloud that masks not Middleton.

  With strong swift strokes of love and wrath he drew

  Shakespearean London’s loud and lusty crew:

  No plainer might the likeness rise and stand

  When Hogarth took his living world in hand.

  No surer then his fire-fledged shafts could hit,

  Winged with as forceful and as faithful wit:

  No truer a tragic depth and heat of heart

  Glowed through the painter’s than the poet’s art.

  He lit and hung in heaven the wan fierce moon

  Whose glance kept time with witchcraft’s air-struck tune:

  He watched the doors where loveless love let in

  The pageant hailed and crowned by death and sin:

  He bared the souls where love, twin-born with hate,

  Made wide the way for passion-fostered fate.

  All English-hearted, all his heart arose

  To scourge with scorn his England’s cowering foes:

  And Rome and Spain, who bade their scorner be

  Their prisoner, left his heart as England’s free.

  Now give we all we may of all his due

  To one long since thus tried and found thus true.

  PROLOGUE TO THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN